GUANGZHOU (AsiaNews): Two Vatican-recognised bishops have reportedly been asked to step aside or take on junior positions in favour of illicitly ordained bishops.

Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian of Shantou, in southern Guangdong, who was ordained in 2006 with Vatican approval, was asked to give way to Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang, who was excommunicated in 2011, but is backed by the Chinese government and is a long-time member in the National People’s Congress.

HONG KONG (UCAN): In lamenting the premature death of 61-year-old Liu Xiaobo at the First Hospital of the China Medical University in Shenyang on July 13, Bangkok-based Michael Sainsbury says that the world has now seen the death of one of its bravest human beings and greatest citizens of modern day China.

HONG KONG (UCAN): The Holy See is not seeking to form diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, but it does have a focus on forming a relationship that could resolve the thorny issue of the being able to appoint bishops according to the laws and traditions of the Church.

Yet this relationship, which is neither on earth nor as it is in heaven, has been vexing the Vatican for decades.

KUALA LUMPUR (UCAN): Bernard Dompok, the former minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities in Malaysia, has been appointed as the country’s first ambassador to the Holy See, it was announced on March 22.

He was also the chief minister of the state of Sabah from 1998 to 1999.

HONG KONG (UCAN): Three members of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, a body that is not recognised by the Holy See, were in the United States of America (US) during the same week that Pope Francis and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, were visiting the country.

VATICAN (SE): Even South Sudan, the world’s newest nation was represented at the Synod of Bishops in Rome, which is scheduled to conclude on October 27, but one of the world’s oldest civilisations with a bigger population than any other country, China, managed to score only one lone voice, and that by letter.

Bishop Luke Li Jing Feng, from Fengxiang in Shaanxi province, did manage to make an intervention by letter.